There are a variety of situations in which it is desirable to submerge an elongated element such as a communication cable in a fluid environment, such as the ocean, and for the element to be generally suspended between an upper and lower boundary of that fluid environment. An example of such an application is where a ship needs to communicate to shore or to another location at high data rates and with low latency. Communication systems utilizing satellite links have drawbacks, such as high latency.
One approach is to connect the ship to a communication site using a communication cable, with the cable being suspended in the fluid environment between the ship and the communication site. Fiber optic cables provide for high data rate and low latency communication. However, a “raw” optic fiber has a density greater than water and therefore will sink to the lower boundary of a fluid environment. This may be undesirable. Jacketed cable assemblies have been provided that are constructed so as to have a neutral buoyancy. However, such composite cables typically have high cost and are bulky.